"Are you guilty, or not guilty?"

[Illustration: "WELL CHESTER, WHAT HAVE YOU TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?"
_Bob Chester's Grit_ Page 24]

The strangeness of the scene and lack of familiarity with the
procedure of a court caused Bob to remain silent.

Again the magistrate repeated his question, but still Bob made no reply.

"I think he wants to plead guilty," interposed one of the plain-clothes
men whom the sergeant had ordered to make a case against the boy.
"Perhaps if you offered to give him a light sentence if he would tell us
who the two men are who got away with the money, he would do so."

"How about that?" demanded the magistrate, again directing his gaze at
the boy.

But before Bob had a chance to reply, Foster exclaimed:

"He does not want to plead guilty, your honor. This whole business in
dragging this boy to court is an outrage. He had no more knowledge of
the fact that those men intended to, or were, swindling this man from
the country, than you have."

The tone in which the reporter spoke was one that could not fail to be
impressive, and after a moment's hesitation, the magistrate, who knew
Foster as a reporter and admired him for his manly fearlessness, asked:

"What do you know about the case?"